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The Bellapart Museum concentrates mostly in paintings from the XIX Century and until the middle of the XX Century. The artists is a mixture of famous Dominican and Spaniard. The museum itself was created by an immigrant from Cataluña in Spain (the place that last year tried to become independent again) and has his last name in the name of the museum. I think he is still alive. The institution is in one of the floors of this Honda dealership. When they do special events they put banners on the outside walls advertising them.

These places are close to each other and in a related theme. Both are on Avenida España facing the Caribbean Sea in Santo Domingo Este, a suburb of the capital. Despite that it is in the metro area, the immediate area isn’t developed yet. If you are going to one, might as well go to both places. Kills two birds with one stone.

Agua Splash Caribe is a water park within the urban area that is visited by Dominican families. It is a great place to spend a weekend afternoon. There are quite a few water parks through out the DR. Some are bigger than others and have more attractions, but this one is the closest one to Santo Domingo. Most people that visit these places are Dominican, so the overall feeling is Latin American.

As you probably know, DR music is one of the few genres from Latin America that is famous in the Spanish-speaking world and many Dominican artists are famous through out the region. In fact, the Dominican genres is heard in the radio of just about every Spanish-speaking country. As such, the ambiance here also has Dominican music filling the air. On the other hand, that is a feature of many areas of the DR. You hear Dominican music just about everywhere you go. Some genres from other countries, such as Salsa, is also heard. For example, Dominicans are well known doing Salsa. You will also hear singers from other countries doing Dominican genres too. Some types of the Merengue and the Bachata are probably the most famous Dominican genres.

They have Dominican Merengue competition in places as faraway as Japan. It has to be seen to be believed.

The National Aquarium was open in the 1970s and includes many marine life found in the Caribbean Sea. It was the largest aquarium in the Caribbean, but a few years ago a bigger one was inaugurated in Fort-de-France, Martinique. On weekdays you might run to a school doing a field trip there, with everything that entails. On a Saturday its guaranteed that no school groups will be there. You get a nice view of the capital skyline in a coconut studded area looking over the Caribbean Sea.

These obelisks are outside the old city, in fact from one of them can be seen some of the walls of the Colonial Zone. Both are from the first half of the 20th Century.

The tallest one that makes a small rotunda is as tall as the one in Washington DC. Originally it was white and commemorated the renaming of the city to Ciudad Trujillo. In the last couple of decades the obelisks was painted with murals of the Mirabal sisters. They are also known as The Butterflies, hence those creatures were also drawn in the murals. Each side has a different murals. The Mirabal sister was killed by Trujillo. The UN dedicated every November 26 as the Day Against Violence Towards Women, an international dedication due to these three sisters. Unofficially it is popularly known as El Obelisco Macho pointing the fact that it looks like an erect male private part jutting from the ground. This is only of three obelisks of its kind and height built in the Americas. The first one was built in Washington DC, USA; the second one in Santo Domingo, and the third one in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

The smaller obelisk is still known as the Obelisco Trujillo-Hull. This commemorates the last check that Trujillo made to Mr Hull, representing the USA, in the DR becoming the only country that paid off all of its national debt. An official signing between the two men representing each respective country was made with plenty of photos. It's quite rare that a monument built by Trujillo remains basically untouched even in its name and commemoration, given that most monuments built by Trujillo in the country in the 1960s were renamed and commemorate something else. This obelisk was built right next to the colonial walls, Fuerte San Gil, and the Caribbean Sea. Popularly its known as Obelisco hembra because it looks like a woman's private part.

This is a restaurant/bar chain owned by a Puerto Rican. He said that the first time he didn’t want to go to Santo Domingo, but his company in Puerto Rico require him to do a business trip. It turns out that he was shocked to find Santo Domingo the way it is. Eventually he found himself returning various times to Santo Domingo until he decided to make the move. Puerto Rico enter into an economic crisis, so his options was heading to the US mainland or give it a try in the DR. He also heard and researched that the economy was growing, so he gave it a try by opening his first La Barrica restaurant/bar in Santo Domingo. Now he has several of this business in the metro area. It’s a good place for drinking a beer, watching some sports in his varios flat screens, and spend a good time with the girlfriend, friends, etc.

This is several drawings of the city that was done by an aide of Samuel Hazard, an American that toured the entire island over many weeks and quickly published his book in 1871. There he describes his trip with many details starting his sail in NYC. It must be remember that at that time the city consisted of what was inside the walls. Around it was mostly rural areas and forests, except the town of San Carlos settled by Spaniards from the Canary Islands in the 1680s.

The images was taken from the book “Santo Domingo Past and Present with A Glance at Haiti”. It is out of print and out of copyright, but original books are still found and print by request can be done with a third party.

There are other drawings of the city and different places on the island.

This is how Moreau-de-Saint-Mery describes them in the early 1790s. He was a Frenchman that was born in Martinique, lived much of his life in Cap Francois (today Cap Haitian, though in its old part the street grid is the same that was built by the French and the buildings are inspired by them), and owned thousands of slaves outside of the city. At the time of revolution he was representing Saint-Domingue in Paris, France; where he lived the rest of his life. He had a long and extensive visit to all parts of the island. He wrote four volumes, two for each side, describing every detail.

The following was in his “Description of The Spanish Part of Santo Domingo”. Apart from describing very well, the Spanish volumes includes many references encouraging the French King to invade the Spanish part and extend the French colony over it.

Lastly (regarding this aspect), this is the description made by Alphius Hyatt Verril, an American from New Haven, Connecticut during his visit in the 1910s. He extensively visited Puerto Rico, the DR, and Haiti. He wrote what he saw in all three places in his book “Puerto Rico Past and Present, and San Domingo of Today”.

He also wrote this of both countries on Hispaniola.

I think with that the end of the 18th, the middle of the 19th, and the beginning of the 20th centuries are shown. Anyone can visit the island in modern days to see what is like right now.

Librería Cuesta has the most bookstores in the DR. In this location on Avenida Lincoln there are a few businesses, including the largest Spanish language bookstore in the Caribbean. The place has two floors and allows people to browse through the books prior to buying them. They have many comfortable chairs through out the store. They also have a section for English language books and magazines from the country and internationally. There is an area where local and international authors either inaugurates a new book or introduces a book to the Dominican market, do questions and answers, and do book signings. For authors that only know a non-Spanish language they would make their presentations in English and someone will do a translation to Spanish. They also do other types of non-book speeches and the owners are open to ideas, even presenting people they don't agree with. Authors tend to be from all over the Caribbean, North and South America, and Western Europe. Events are free and anyone can attend.

This park is on Avenida de los Próceres within walking distance of Ikea and Agora Mall. I don't know the official name, but everybody calls it Zooberto. The name is a combination of the animal statues scattered in the place and the ex-mayor Roberto Salcedo who built it. During the holidays the light this park during the evenings.

This house is home to the Dominican Family of The XIX Century Museum. The museum has many artifacts of what a rich home was like in the XIX century. The house itself is one of the first home built by a Spaniard in America. It also has the only Isabelle Gothic window in a home in the entire hemisphere. It also has a inner courtyard with a garden. The house was built in the early 1500s by Francisco Tostado, a Spaniard that became very rich in Santo Domingo. His son was killed by a canon fired from one of the caravels in the 1586 invasion of Sir Francis Drake. The canon fell on him in a nearby street. The house is across from the Plazoleta Padre Billini in the Colonial City.

Photo is from Google Street View.

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